Max Horkheimer 1895 – 1973
Max Horkheimer (1895 – 1973) was a German philosopher of the Contemporary era, associated with Critical Theory, Continental Philosophy, and Marxism.
Max Horkheimer was a 20th-century German philosopher and sociologist, the founder of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt and the central organising figure of what became known as the Frankfurt School of critical theory. His 1937 essay Traditional and Critical Theory set out the programme of a critical theory of society aimed at human emancipation, distinct from the descriptive social sciences. His 1947 book Dialectic of Enlightenment, co-written with Theodor Adorno, argued that the Enlightenment programme of rational mastery has issued in its own forms of unfreedom in modern instrumental reason. He directed the Institute through its years of exile in the United States during the Nazi period and oversaw its return to Frankfurt after the war. Through his administrative leadership and theoretical work, Horkheimer shaped the institutional and intellectual identity of critical theory.
Max Horkheimer was born in 1895 in Stuttgart into a wealthy Jewish industrialist family. He served in the First World War, then studied philosophy and psychology at Munich, Freiburg, and Frankfurt, taking his doctorate under Hans Cornelius and habilitating in 1925 with a study of Kant's Critique of Judgment. In 1930 he was appointed director of the Institute for Social Research at Frankfurt and to a chair in social philosophy.
Under his leadership the Institute became the institutional home of what came to be called the Frankfurt School. Forced into exile after 1933, he relocated the Institute first to Geneva and then to Columbia University in New York; key essays of these years include 'Traditional and Critical Theory' (1937) and the wartime collaboration with Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947). Horkheimer returned to Frankfurt in 1949 and twice served as rector of the reopened university.
His critical theory turned the resources of Hegelian-Marxist philosophy on the catastrophes of the twentieth century, diagnosing instrumental reason, the culture industry, and the regression of bourgeois enlightenment into new forms of domination. He retired to Switzerland in the 1950s, continued to write essays on religion and politics, and died in Nuremberg in 1973.
Key facts
- Nationality
- German
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Critical Theory, Continental Philosophy, Marxism
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Max Horkheimer:
“The fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant.”
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Attributed to Max Horkheimer:
“Reason for centuries has meant the activity of understanding and assimilating the eternal ideas which were to function as goals for men.”
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“The more ideas have become automatic, instrumentalised, the less does anybody see in them thoughts with a meaning of their own.”
pp. 21-22. -
Attributed to Max Horkheimer:
“Logic is not independent of content.”
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Attributed to Max Horkheimer:
“The function of critical theory is to facilitate the historical process by which mankind becomes conscious of itself.”
Max Horkheimer by topic
Frequently asked about Max Horkheimer
- When did Max Horkheimer live?
- Max Horkheimer was born in 1895 and died in 1973.
- Where was Max Horkheimer from?
- Max Horkheimer was a German philosopher of the Contemporary era.
- What philosophical movements is Max Horkheimer associated with?
- Max Horkheimer was associated with Critical Theory, Continental Philosophy, and Marxism.
- What was Max Horkheimer known for?
- Max Horkheimer was a 20th-century German philosopher and sociologist, the founder of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt and the central organising figure of what became known as the Frankfurt School of critical theory.
- How many quotes are attributed to Max Horkheimer?
- There are 29 attributed quotations from Max Horkheimer in the 1001Philosophers collection, organized by topic.